


Scribbles

by Mina Lightstar (ukefied)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen, Insert Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 16:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1611560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ukefied/pseuds/Mina%20Lightstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rukia can't draw, and also there's a Hollow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scribbles

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written MANY, MANY YEARS AGO. Like, before the anime was even out yet.

When Kurosaki Ichigo stumbled down to the kitchen on Tuesday morning, he paused just outside of the door. The room was silent, and that was immediately a cause for alarm. Ichigo's father, the neighborhood doctor, Kurosaki Isshin, was usually awake at this hour. Typically, the hours before opening the clinic were spent engaging in one of his favorite activities: antagonizing his son. Ichigo almost never woke up with the aid of his alarm clock; usually his father barged in, whether Ichigo wanted it or not, and pounced. That was how most days at the Kurosaki Clinic began.

After "helping" Ichigo wake up, Isshin sat at the table until breakfast was ready, rustling the paper and clinking his spoon against his coffee mug. If the kitchen was this quiet, then his father either wasn't awake yet, or....

Ichigo prepared himself, and then decided to brave the kitchen. The moment his left foot touched the tiled floor, he was ready for it.

"GOOD MORNING!" Kurosaki Isshin bellowed. For any other family, it would have meant just a loud, jubilant greeting. But not for the Kurosaki household; in their home, the phrase "good morning" sometimes came with a drop-kick.

Ichigo twisted around, noted the flying shape of his father as it sailed toward him, and leapt out of the way. His father landed in an ungainly heap on the floor.

"Really," Ichigo groaned, rubbing at one eye, "it's not even seven-thirty and already you're starting with this in the kitchen."

"Ichigo!" Isshin growled, the word muffled as his face was pressed against the floor. "That is no way to greet your father!" He leapt to his feet and started rolling up his sleeves, as though he would continue the attack.

"What kind of father assaults his son like that?" Ichigo returned, his voice raising an octave. He balled his hands into fists, both in exasperation and readiness to go for another round. It typically required a good kick or two before his father would back off.

"Stop being so LOUD," Isshin snapped. "It's still early!"

"*You're* being loud!" Ichigo shot back. "Shut up!"

"*YOU* shut up!" This accompanied with a lunge that might have left a bruise, were Ichigo not so accustomed to things like this.

"No, *you* shut up!" he shouted as he side-stepped, neatly avoiding the assault, raising a fist to crack a hand over the back of his father's head.

"Enough, enough," soothed the young, soft voice belonging to Kurosaki Yuzu. With the grace of a woman much older than her years, Yuzu swept into the kitchen, compelling father and son to stop feuding lest she be caught in the crossfire.

"I say let them fight," Karin cracked, trotting in right behind her younger sister. "It'll expel some energy and maybe they'll be calmer for the rest of the day."

Yuzu made no reply, merely setting about getting breakfast started. After a moment, Karin set about helping her. Though the youngest in their household, Yuzu had taken the role of the matriarch in that it was she who took care of the cooking and cleaning. With Karin, Yuzu made sure the house ran smoothly, despite the frequent misbehavior of a certain physician.

"Ichigo was going to hit Daddy," his father wailed, his voice wavering and trailing off by the end of the sentence.

Karin didn't even look back at him. "I'm sure you were asking for it."

"When isn't he?" Ichigo asked wryly, shoving his hands in his pockets. He pointedly ignored the forlorn wail that was his father's response. "Fix yourself up," he said to Isshin's rumpled form. "You'll have patients in a couple of hours."

"Your feelings for Daddy are so fickle~!" his father said, but complied, leaving the kitchen swiftly to go and wash up once again. Yuzu hadn't vacuumed the floors yet, and so who knew what Isshin had been swallowing while face-first against the tiles?

"That guy," Karin murmured with a shake of her head. She was sitting at the table now, wearing her customary look that could be called wry or half-asleep.

Ichigo rotated his shoulders, watching absently as Yuzu prepared breakfast. When he saw she was nearly finished, he fetched a tray.

"Ichi," Yuzu ventured, "you won't eat in the kitchen with us?"

He would have, but there was the little matter of a Shinigami in his closet. "I have some homework to finish," he explained with a shrug. "I'll just take this up to my room and--"

"Wash your hands before you eat," Yuzu cut in promptly, a hint of command in her voice.

Obediently, Ichigo went. Unfortunately, he let his guard down -- and his father took advantage of that, seeing as how he was on his way *back* from the washroom.

Needless to say, he was a little late bringing breakfast up for Rukia. And so it was no surprise when, after he'd shut his door and said, "Breakfast," Rukia did not answer. It was even less of a surprise that when he opened the closet door without announcing himself, the Shinigami was nowhere to be found. Her bedding was folded up and piled neatly. She'd gone on ahead, and without telling him, at that.

Ichigo sighed, set the tray down, and began to eat his share. And since Rukia had left and therefore forfeited her right to any of it, he ate her share, too. There was no use letting it go to waste.

 

***

"You *passed*?!"

Ichigo stuck a finger in his ear after the shout. The action was belated; the damage had already been done. Wordlessly, he held up his copy of the quiz, which had been returned just before lunch, and let Keigo see for himself.

"You *passed*!" Perhaps in another group of friends, this would be a cry of congratulations. But with Ichigo's friends, it was accusatory. "I can't believe you *passed*!"

"Sorry?" Ichigo offered, not at all sincere. He folded his quiz and stuck it in his pocket. There was still time before they had to return to class, and so he'd decided to go sit outside with Rukia, since maybe she had some things to tell him. He hadn't really counted on being ambushed by Keigo and Mizuiro.

"You *traitor*," Keigo wailed, wrapping his arms around Ichigo's neck and draping helplessly against him. "How could you do this to us?"

"Us?" Mizuiro echoed, almost forgotten at the rear. Or maybe he was just staying out of the way. "I passed, too. Just barely," he added in a sheepish voice.

"Mizuiro!" Keigo cried, releasing Ichigo and moving in on the shorter boy. "How are we supposed to be friends in failure if you guys pass your tests?"

"Ah," Mizuiro managed as their friend seized his shoulders and shook him, "well, Keigo, see, it wasn't really *that hard*, so really, that's the only reason why I managed not to fail, so, it's really--"

Ichigo spotted Rukia sitting on the grass in the distance, a notebook in her lap. "Why don't you guys go see what Inoue and Tatsuki are up to?" he asked, hoping to gently brush them off. "I've gotta talk to Kuchiki."

"Oh, really?" Mizuiro mused, peeking around Keigo. "And what might the topic--"

"Inoue-san!" Keigo sighed. "Maybe she'll let me carry her lunch for her." He turned around to head back to the school, Mizuiro in tow. "See you in the next class, Ichigo."

Ichigo waved, already walking across the grass to where Rukia was sitting. "You got out here pretty quickly." Rukia waved at him, still scribbling in her notebook. "I figured you wanted me to meet you." He gestured vaguely over his shoulder. "The others are gone, so if you wanna talk Shinigami and Hollows, we can do it now." Rukia made a noncommittal sound and her pen kept scratching against the paper.

Finally, curiosity got the best of him. "What are you -- drawing?" He stumbled over the last word, because Rukia would never be an artist.

"I thought you'd never ask," Rukia replied, dropping her pen onto the grass and displaying the notebook for him to see.

Ichigo twitched. "What is that?"

Rukia's face peeked around the book, wearing a close-eyed grin. "The first one is you and your family, after the fiasco at breakfast I heard. The second is you and your friends just now."

When it was apparent that Rukia was expecting him to say something, he managed to mutter, "Ah. So that's what it is." In Ichigo's opinion, whatever it *really* was looked more like a pack of chubby bunnies with features that vaguely if at all resembled humans. One of the bunnies was beating on another, which he *assumed* was meant to represent his father beating on him.

"Well?" Rukia prompted. "What do you think?" She turned the notebook around so she could examine the doodles again. "I think it's fairly accurate. Though I didn't have any orange to give you hair. Shame; I could have truly captured the way you sprawl onto the ground after your father tackles you."

Ichigo twitched again and gave the Shinigami a Look. "The only thing you 'captured' was the skill to draw fat rabbits that will never pass as humans."

"Fat rabbits?" Rukia sputtered, looking insulted.

"Yeah," Ichigo affirmed. "I told you once before, you can't draw. You're horrible at it."

There was no warning. Rukia dropped her notebook and picked up the pen as she was launching to her feet and tackling him. They fell to the grass in a heap of limbs, and Ichigo heard the pen's cap pop off and knew what was coming.

"Don't you *dare*--" he began, but it went unheeded. He was sporting an ink moustache seconds later. "Damn it!" he snapped as Rukia climbed off of him. "Now I have to get to the washroom before class to wash this off."

"You'd better get to it, then," the Shinigami said with a smirk. She was settled on her knees once again, looking very pleased with herself.

Ichigo shot her an angry glare. "I can't believe you--"

A telltale ring tone interrupted them, and Rukia's face suddenly became very serious. She pulled out her communicator as Ichigo glanced right and left, making sure there was no one around.

"A Hollow?" he asked.

"You bet." Rukia stood and brushed off her skirt. "Let's get to it."

Ichigo couldn't suppress a smile as he followed suit. "Right behind you."

He wondered if all Hollows would be so kind as to appear during lunch period. It was easier to get out of school when he didn't have to come up with an excuse for the teachers.

 

 

+end+

 


End file.
